


Acceptance

by Estel



Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estel/pseuds/Estel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan prepares to speak in front of a college class and realizes that something is missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> I found this fic hiding in a notepad from a few months ago. Its amazing how little things can get away from you like that. Its short and somewhat incomplete, but I am rather fond of it and I feel it says what I wanted to say about Alan.

Alan Bradley squared up to the podium. Fourty-three years of life experience, fifteen of which spent at the forefront of the technology industry, had yet to instill in him a love of public speaking. Still, somehow, he remembered _volunteering_ for this appointment.

Before him sat 153 eager eyes. The students sat at their small auditorium desks, ready to absorb his teachings. Prof. Alan Bradley. Guest lecturer and Doctor of Computer Sciences. Former CEO and revolutionary software project lead.

A knot grew in his stomach.

"Technology," he began the same way he had in his bathroom mirror some hours before.

\---

"Technology. What a word."

The fog was nearly clear from the mirror from his morning shower. Alan finished the last loop of his half-Windsor.

"It covers everything from toasters to flat-screens. Its got heavy-hitters like cars, computers, airplanes, and space shuttles. It's even in little things that we use every day, and don't even think about.

"Its also very personal to me. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Alan Bradley." He frowned.

" _Doctor_ Alan Bradley."

A growl of frustration bubbled from his throat and he shook his head. Was any of this right? None of it set right, that was certain. Underneath his nicest shirt and tie and just under his skin, he felt a creeping sense of doubt like something was missing.

The weight of the realization pushed his shoulders down. Yet again, Kevin Flynn was what was missing. Every time he thought he was done missing him, another moment of triumph would be cut down a notch or two for his absence.

\---

One hundred and fifty-three faces staring back at him. The same thoughts lingered in his mind that had troubled him before: This should be Kevin's moment.

Instead of his next prepared sentence, Alan sighed and removed his glasses. He tugged up his shirt tail and polished his lenses. He knew why they were here. The pause allowed him to brace for the reality to set in and he lifted his wire frames back to their place.

"I know why most of you are here." This time he really took a look at their _faces_. Some where obviously uncertain of why they were occupying the seat in the intermediate comp. sci. lecture, but even in the first row, he saw Flynn's shirts and a few of the other tokens of the last of the Flynn Lives moment.

"Yes, this fulfills one more requirement towards your diploma, but most of you are here for the same reason I'm here before you today.

"For eleven years now, I have served as a voice in the management and operations of a company you might have heard of: ENCOM."

Now they were watching.

"My life's work is in the software and hardware that you work with every day, and I owe every circuit and line of that code to one of the most visionary men I- _anyone's_ every known: Mr. Kevin Flynn."


End file.
